The attendance knife

It may well be time for Steve Shields to move on to some other endeavor; he has been here a long time. However, I totally reject the idea that the coach is primarily responsible for the attendance. The coach is responsible for the team; others in the administration have to do the things it takes to draw and maintain crowds. True, some fickle sorts only come to see a "winner," and the coach is responsible to recruit and train winning teams, but placing the bulk of the burden on him because crowds stay away is illogical and unfair. Furthermore, I completely reject the idea that style of play affects attendance. That is an excuse, not a reason. Wisconsin's play has been slow during Bo Ryan's tenure, but their attendance is good.

I do not know who makes the final scheduling decisions, but this year's non-conference schedule was terrible. Terrible! Did someone just sit down and say, "Let's see when we can play the games that will draw the least number of people"? Even the moving of conference games to 7:30 was a bad idea. Our non-conference opponents are good ones. We brought some good programs into Little Rock this year; but we played them at horrendous times. Wrong days. Wrong times of the day. Just terrible scheduling!

When men's basketball is the lead sport at a school, then the AD has to try to keep good attendance at men's basketball. If Shields is stabbed with the attendance knife it would be ironic, for this year, at least, it was largely of someone else's making.